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India

Karni Mata Rat Temple

Yama refused so Karni Mata said from that
day forward that all storytellers who died would be turned to rats and
revered at his temple so as to deny Yama of human souls.

Once we had exhausted the Meherangahr
Fort and small alleyways of Jodhpur, we
decided to take a 5 hour drive through the desert to Bikaner
via Nagaur and Deshnot. Deshnot is renowned
for its Karni Mata rat temple. According to a 14th century legend, Karni
Mata, a reincarnation of some Hindu God, asked the Hindu God of Death Yama
for a favor: Karni Mata’s son, a story teller, had died (really
died, no possibility for reincarnation for some reason) and he wanted him
risen from the dead.

So… in we went! Our first
question was who cleans up all the dead rats laying around? We thought
it was very sweet that people fed the living rats, but what about the dead
ones? Clearly a cultural perception, because we couldn't imagine
there was some required ‘waiting period’ for reincarnation from a dead
rat to something else (strike us down for being disrespectful and sacrilegious).

But we must not have offended anyone
too badly, since - as we were leaving town and waiting for a train to pass
- we saw both a holy cow and a traveling guru!